1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the archiving of business events and more particularly relates to archiving business events according to a user-specified naming pattern.
2. Description of the Related Art
Application integration has emerged as a key e-business technology for providing integrated customer solutions arising from the need to share application data among multiple customer applications. For example, WebSphere Process Server (WPS) from IBM of Armonk, N.Y., may be part of a WebSphere integration system that enables data flow between disparate data stores and applications. The exchange of data is typically bi-directional, metadata driven, and encapsulated in business events known as business objects. A business object typically includes a set of attributes that represent a business entity (such as Employee) and an action on the data (such as a create or update operation).
The component of a WebSphere business integration system that integrates data among heterogeneous applications is typically referred to as an integration broker or integration server. An integration server typically provides a variety of services that include the ability to route data, a repository of rules that govern the integration process, connectivity to a variety of applications, and administrative capabilities that facilitate integration.
WebSphere Interchange Server also enables users to create business processes using a process design tool. A business process defines how the business events that are passing through the system should be handled. A need exists for business events passing through the system to be archived. Event archival allows a user to refer back to processed events when the user faces business integration issues during the workflow, to verify failed business events and check for the cause of failure, and to keep a count of the number of business events processed. Conventional technology stores business events using a name that includes a unique identification (ID) key associated with the event. This provides a convenient method to ensure that archive files have unique names and naming conflicts do not result. However, these unique IDs are typically long strings that have not relationship to the content contained in the archived event. A user trying to find an archive file often needs to find the file in respect to a specific context—like a business event that occurred at a specific time or relates to particular content for example email archive events to a particular recipient.
While tools may be built to provide more contextual information about the archived event, the user may prefer to use standard file system browsing tools to locate and archived event of interest. Unfortunately, this requires that each event be opened and examined until the proper archived event is located. This increases the time required to find the archived event of interest. In addition, the user may desire to define how the archived events are named. Conventional tools do not allow such flexibility.
From the foregoing discussion, it should be apparent that a need exists for an apparatus, system, and method that provides for the archiving of business events where a reviewer can immediately see the context of the business event on the name of the archive file or document. Beneficially, such an apparatus, system, and method would allow the user to specify the type of content that goes into creating the name of the archive file, so the file can be named in a pattern reflecting the context of the business event that the reviewer will wish to see at the time of review.